Thursday Evening — 7th Floor
The clock on the wall read 5:00 PM.
The doors to the development room burst open.
A junior employee rushed in, slightly breathless. "Team Lead Guo — emergency. The game server's been breached"
The room went still for half a second.
Guo's expression didn't change much. Just a subtle tightening around the eyes.
"Which section"
"The matchmaking and player data server. Someone got in through a backend vulnerability. We don't know how much was accessed yet"
A beat of silence.
Then —
"Everyone on deck" Guo said. "Now"
It wasn't even her section.
Qinran had been halfway through a UI fix when Guo called the whole team in. She saved her work, pulled up the compromised files, and got to it without a word.
The room shifted into a different gear entirely — the kind of focused, slightly desperate energy that only came with a real crisis. Empty cups accumulated. Someone ordered coffee that went cold before anyone drank it. The overhead lights felt harsher than usual.
Hours passed.
Outside the windows, the sky went from grey to dark.
Upstairs, Mo Beichuan set down his pen.
His office was quiet. The building had mostly emptied out by now — he could tell by the quality of the silence, the way the ventilation sounded different when fewer people were running machines.
He stood up. Rolled his shoulders once.
No particular reason.
He walked out.
The elevator opened on the seventh floor — and he stopped.
The lights were all on.
He stepped in.
The energy hit him immediately. Screens everywhere, people hunched forward, someone on a call in the corner speaking in a low urgent voice. Team Lead Guo was standing at the back of the room, arms crossed, watching two employees work through something on a shared monitor.
Beichuan stopped a passing employee quietly. "What happened"
"Server breach, President Mo. We've been trying to isolate it for the last few hours"
He said nothing.
His eyes moved across the room once — taking in the tired faces, the stacked cups, the general atmosphere of controlled panic.
They found her without him deciding to look.
Qinran was at her desk, slightly turned away from him. Her hair had come loose on one side. She was leaning forward, one elbow on the desk, eyes fixed on the screen, completely still in the way people only were when their entire focus had narrowed to a single point.
He watched her for a moment before turning away.
Then he took out his phone.
Forty minutes later, the elevator opened again.
Delivery staff. Bags and bags of food — rice, soup, side dishes, enough for the entire floor.
The room looked up collectively.
"Who ordered this" someone said.
No one answered immediately.
Then an employee near the door noticed the figure standing quietly to one side.
"President Mo—"
"You have a long night ahead" Beichuan said simply. "Eat first. You'll work better"
A beat of surprised silence.
Then Guo nodded once. "Everyone take fifteen"
The room exhaled.
People reached for containers, grateful and slightly stunned. Someone laughed tiredly at something. The atmosphere shifted just enough — still tense, but no longer airless.
Qinran looked at the food in front of her. Then toward the door.
Beichuan was already talking to Guo in a low voice, back slightly toward the room.
She picked up her chopsticks.
"Thank you, CEO" she said, not loudly.
He glanced over briefly.
"Don't mention it"
He stayed a few more minutes — spoke with Guo about the breach, asked a few quiet questions — then left.
The elevator doors closed.
The seventh floor went back to work.
Nearly midnight.
The breach had been contained. Not fully resolved, but the immediate damage was isolated. The team was running on fumes and cold leftovers.
Qinran leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers to her eyes.
Almost.
Her phone lit up on the desk.
She picked up instantly.
"Yes"
"Miss Lin, Luoli woke up and he's asking for you. He won't go back to sleep"
She exhaled slowly. Glanced at the screen. Then at the clock.
"Put him on"
A shuffle. Then —
"Mom" his voice was small and sleepy.
"I'm here. Go back to sleep"
"...when are you coming home"
"Soon. Close your eyes"
A pause.
"...okay"
She waited until she heard his breathing even out on the other end before she hung up.
She set the phone down.
she turned back to the screen.
"Rework it. Debug it. No time like today"
Down the corridor —
Mo Beichuan had come back.
He didn't examine why. He'd told himself it was to check the progress report. To ask Guo something. Something reasonable.
He had just stepped off the elevator when he heard it.
He stopped.
The voice was quiet. Tired. Completely matter of fact.
Rework it. Debug it. No time like today.
Something slammed into his chest without warning.
His feet stopped moving.
The corridor blurred slightly at the edges.
That voice.
That—
Images came fast and without order. A desk. A coffee he'd left without a note. A laugh he'd heard through a closed door and stopped walking just to listen to. A phone that rang and rang and—
His back met the wall.
He didn't remember moving.
He stood there, the wall cold through his jacket, and the memories kept coming — sharper now, more complete, filling in the gaps he hadn't known were gaps until this moment.
And then her face.
Clear. Finally, completely clear.
...my Ran....
He closed his eyes.
The corridor was silent except for the faint sound of keyboards from the development room.
He stayed there for a long moment.
Then he straightened. Adjusted his jacket. Looked at nothing in particular.
And walked back to the elevator.